TestBlog

After initially hosting my blog on a virtual machine instance on Google Cloud, I got busy with other things and took my time getting around to finding an alternative hosting solution. The virtual machine instance was a bit too expensive for just hosting a blog when cheaper (or free!) options exist, considering my free trial on Google Cloud ran out. Since I still don’t have a whole lot of time for this project, I decided to try Github Pages, it sounded pretty simple, and in fact it is.

I got started with Linux about a year ago when a colleague recommended trying Ubuntu as an alternative to Windows. So far, I’ve gained basic competency in the terminal, and acquired a working knowledge of the operating system. I’ve experimented quite a bit with different Linux distributions in Virtual Box - installing and configuring Arch Linux was a great learning experience. But, I think working at an IT company (my role is not technical) and constantly being around web developers and devops engineers was what really got me interested in computing, and pushed me to do a lot more than I otherwise would have - like studying Python, and deploying this site.

After hearing and reading about Docker, I decided to try building a static blog on my own as a learning experience. I decided to use Hugo to generate and serve my blog, and I used a short script with git to automatically post updates. Due to its compact size, Alpine Linux was a good base for my docker image. You can check out the Dockerfile I developed on github.